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The Fall

Today is the last day of summer.

Today I turned fifty-three. I won’t go so far as to say I celebrated this day, but certainly I was wished a happy birthday by family and friends. There were the usual jokes and ribbing about being an old man…fifty-three is not old these days, but it ain’t young.

Typically birthdays don’t affect me one way or the other, the notable exception being turning twenty-five. It was a year of uncertainty and madness and regret, and a time where life should’ve started making sense. Yet the senselessness of that time still haunts today.

It was pleasant enough today…but already the signs are there for those adept at their reading. Summer is gone, and fall is upon us. A crispness is in the air, and while the days are still warm, the nights grow cool.

Tomorrow is the autumnal equinox, which is a fancy way of saying fall is here. Equinox is a Latin term for ‘equal night,’ meaning day and night are the same length. In the coming days, nights will grow long and days will shorten.

Today is the last day of summer. Tomorrow the fall begins.

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It’s maddening, actually. While others of a certain age work toward their winding down, I feel as if I’m just now starting. The questions and doubts that haunt every artist are magnified in the fading light. Has my time passed? Do I have enough fuel for the path I seek?

Am I simply too old to do this?

I joke that age is a number, and today I feel one hundred. Yet in my gut I still feel the flame that burns bright against the coming dark. With promises given and gifting empowered, I stubbornly hold to the vision of something greater than myself. I wonder and wail and ask the Father for the meaning behind it all. The only answers seem to be the whispering wind and silver of clouds heavy laden with doubt. Even my own choices conspire against the knowing of this vision of music that reveals and redeems and restores.

Summer is over. I realize I’m in the beginnings of my autumn…fall is here, and winter will follow all too soon…

 

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“Listen and Repeat”

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“Let everything with breath praise The Lord.”

Psalm 150:6

It has always been my intent for Project Onefifty to be the artistic expression of this passage, for this verse to live and breathe in the everyday through music and media of all kinds.

So what does it mean to praise the Lord during seasons good and bad? Is it to ignore pain and pretend all is well? Is it to embrace joy when others are lost and alone?

Todays post does not attempt to answer these questions despite needing them in my own heart and life. Today is just about the thoughts and feelings of the morning, a gentle wrestling, with a greater match sure to come…

* * * * *

I am not inspired.

The dawn was once again beautiful, the morning star shining in its loneliness against the background of the coming day. Hours later the crispness of the early hours still lingers, more a foretaste of the fall than in truth a midsummers day in the South.

I sit on my smallish porch in one of two weathered white rocking chairs, a faded pillow against the small of my back. A gorgeous river birch is shading my eyes from the overt glare of the sun. The prevailing sound is that of the wind in the front maple tree, green and full on this July Monday. In the fall it glows a fiery red before letting go of it’s glory, always reaching heavenward even when I do not.

As usual my thoughts stray to music…

But these days music is not the balm it has been. There’s certainly no shortage of great music to enjoy, despite all those people prophesying it’s death. There is more great art to be found now than I can ever remember. My memory is not great for certain things, but it’s filled with a lifetime of music.

It’s not that music no longer holds me in gentle thrall…far from it. It’s my passion as well as my chief (better make that only) export. I hear music even now in the whispering wind and the birdsong from the woods behind my house. Even the occasional shouts of kids playing at the big hill provide accents of sorts.

I still live and breathe and dream in notes and rhythms.

For all the sensory input of the morning, I am not inspired. Yet the fire to create burns as red as the fall maple.
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They say that only amateurs wait for inspiration, and that ‘real’ artists and writers simply get up and go to work. I live in the Nashville area, a city built on music built from 9-5. But hey…I have no hits, so who am I to knock the work ethic of those who do?

So I sit here on my porch with my pen and journal, doing the work of a writer…recording thought and feeling, digging for truth in spite of myself. My dog Farley is here with me, sniffing the breeze like he knows something is up. Today I wish I had his instincts.

For some reason I think of my time growing up. Where did that come from?

Back in the ancient days of the 20th century, a diploma demanded two years of a foreign language. The choices were few: German (hard), Spanish (who wants to be called Jorge? ‘hey Whore-Hey!’), and French. Despite being born in West Germany, I chose French. That’s still Europe, right? Little did I know I would be ‘Monsieur Georges’ for the next two years. Sure, it looks innocuous enough in print, but try being a freshman and sophomore with a name pronounced ‘zHOrsh.’ Not the manliest of names for an emergent nerd.

While life with French I & II teacher Madame Gobeill had its moments, I sadly remember few words and phrases. But one still comes to mind from time to time:

‘Ecouter et répéter’ or ‘listen and repeat.’

There’s a lesson here. The great writers are constantly listening to the world around them, soaking in life and revealing it as it is and as it should be. The great musicians listen intently to the music in which they willingly drown, looking for just the right moment to add to the magic their own insight and vision. There is simply nothing else like these moments…

Listen and repeat.

The maple is still reaching toward heaven even as the wind rustles a rhythm for the still-singing birds. Music and magic and inspiration abound.

Father, thank You for the gift of this day. Help me to listen and repeat and follow the song You placed within.

 

 

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Iggy and the New Day

Necessity has brought me to this time and place.

The optics of my camera phone are inadequate to capture the imagery I see in these moments before dawn, so I must use the inadequacy of words instead. I start the timer for my five minute deadline. Go!

Snatches of unfinished lyrics spring to mind from songs of another life. Morning stars and indigo skies recall other predawn times. But no new lines offer themselves up in sacrifice, so I will observe and recount the world as I see it.

This morning, the black silhouette of an abandoned silo against a slowly brightening sky stands in stark contrast to the sound of Iggy singing about being fancy. I am her opposite in this early hour; decidedly ‘un-fancy’ with no melodies readily available to me.

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Already night sounds are transforming into the soundtrack of the new day. At least the birds still remember music. It may be cacophonous to some, but to me their song is beautiful and random. It is the sweet dissonance of real life, and all the more fitting for this moment.

My five minutes are up and the sky grows brighter with every thumb-stroke. At fifty-two, there are more mornings in the rear view mirror of memory than ahead.

One should never waste a dawn, or the promise of a new day.